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When Justine Hastings and Jeremy Golden announced their plans to run as Student Association president and vice president in February 2020, they had no idea what the next year would hold. 

“We didn’t know what was going to happen or for how long,” Golden said. “We had no ‘here’s what we would do in a pandemic’ type of platform.”

With only days left in their positions, Hastings and Golden told The Daily Orange that they’re happy with what they’ve accomplished over the past year but disappointed in how their relationship with the university evolved. In the future, they’re hoping Syracuse University officials will do more to work alongside SA.

The pair’s initial platform focused on support for marginalized communities, campus accessibility, financial accessibility, SA accountability and student voice. They fulfilled many of their proposed initiatives but faced difficulties implementing others. 

Hastings and Golden both said they’re most proud of implementing Callisto, a third-party sexual assault reporting system, on campus. Golden has been working to bring the app to SU since he was a member of SA’s Assembly. 

But Hastings and Golden had challenges implementing the app in November. 

“There was a lot of pushback from campus offices that you thought would be supportive,” Hastings said. “A lot of the time, it was offices telling students what they want or need versus when students are telling them what they actually want or need.”

 Another one of their primary goals for this year was to introduce a student vote on the Board of Trustees. Golden finalized a proposal for the initiative in September, and the Board of Trustees is set to make a decision relative to the vote in mid-May. 

Golden is optimistic that the trustees will approve SA’s proposal.

“Being able to research other institutions and talk to their administration about how they have student representation on their boards and how that’s been going well was a great experience,” Hastings said. “I think just showing the board that students do want to have a voice and they do engage is important regardless.”

Hastings and Golden also implemented programming, worked to improve representation on campus and called attention to major issues at SU and nationwide.

SA hosted a march in August against racism and police brutality. The organization has also hosted events over the past year for different heritage months and its first Multicultural Week in October. 

“I know we can’t program a lot of the issues on our campus away,” Hastings said. “Just having events that highlight and celebrate each other’s identities has been really great.”

As low-income students, Hastings and Golden both faced financial struggles while working on campus and planned to expand textbook affordability, create additional non-federal work-study jobs and increase student employees’ salaries through SA. The pair also planned to encourage the Board of Trustees to either freeze tuition or create more tuition assistance programs.

In November, Hastings and Golden met with Ryan Williams, vice president for enrollment management, to discuss bringing back the Posse Scholarship program for students in Los Angeles. The initiative ultimately fell through due to financial constraints, they said.

Still, Golden and Hastings said they did as much as they could to implement financial accessibility initiatives.

“What I can say is that I tried my hardest for that,” Hastings said. “In the future, I just hope that the university is more aware or cares more about students who don’t come from financial backgrounds that can afford changes like this.”

Hastings and Golden said they hope new hires at SU will improve the relationship between the university and SA. The university is currently looking for a deputy senior vice president of enrollment and the student experience.

“I think the university will have options to fill that spot with someone who is incredibly trustworthy in students and student voices and student power and will lean into that role,” Golden said. “I’d like to see them do that.”

David Bruen and Darnelle Stinfort were elected last week as SA’s next president and vice president, respectively. The duo, who ran unopposed, received votes from 10.2% of the student population.

Hastings and Golden expressed confidence in Bruen and Stinfort and said the organization is in good hands.

“We have done everything we can and left no stone unturned,” Golden said. “We hope that the next administration continues to have that kind of mentality.”

Published on May 2, 2021 at 11:08 pm

Contact Maggie: [email protected] | @maggie_hickss